What would be the skills to obtain sovereignty?

[AlexanderHowl]

Not unless they have a very good way of defending against nuclear and/or conventional weapons launched by the major powers. A corporation would need the ability to fight back, to make it too dangerous to attack it, in order to remain independent. Anyway, no major nation would recognize its sovereignty unless it had sufficient economic power outside of their control to destabilize their nations during a time of war.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

20,000 inhabitants Rock Snake Mobile Industrial Colony (SM+14, $94.42 billion) or 31,000 inhabitants Class V Orbital Spaceport (SM+15, $180.32 billion)?

No corporation with that level of wealth has attempted to declare itself sovereign. Do you have a model for what stops them? Forming such a model would seem to be a first step toward figuring out what would have to be changed to allow a corporation to attain sovereignty.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by whswhs

No corporation with that level of wealth has attempted to declare itself sovereign. Do you have a model for what stops them? Forming such a model would seem to be a first step toward figuring out what would have to be changed to allow a corporation to attain sovereignty.

What? No, no. The corporation launches the largest spaceport to ever exist, then attempts to obtain sovereignty claiming the spaceport as its capital or territory at first (international or space law on hand), and then negotiates the extraterritoriality of its facilities in a catholic church style.

[Michele]

But why exactly does the corporation need to officially cliam sovereignty?
If as a pragmatic business entity it can be content with de facto sovereignty, then the way to go is to follow the recipe provided by Forsyth in his The Deceiver.

Find a small overseas dependency of say France or Britain, a small non-strategic place. Those islets presently are satisfied with their status. But the corporation can pump money into an "independence movement". Make sure it gains traction with the small and unsophisticated local population, by showing that there's much to gain economically. Force the colonial power to hold a referendum and then free elections. Make sure the party that wins the elections is a tool of the corporation.

This is going to be yet another stamp-sized statelet, and formally a democratic republic, nothing new or objectionable. OTOH if it was the first corporate state in history, it would be quite objectionable. The former colonial power will be the first to recognize sovereignty of the new state and acknowledge the new democratically elected government, and other powers will follow suit.

Pay the politicians and do improve the economic situation of the general population, so that everyone's happy. You're done. You can have the corporation set up its HQ in the new state, CEOs are issued diplomatic passports, and you can even equip the state with a small but efficient brand new navy, if that makes you feel safer. Don't overdo this; nobody will object if the statelet is more than able to defend itself, but people in intel agencies would begin scratching their heads if it tried to purchase a nuclear-powered carrier with its air wing and escort warships.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

20,000 inhabitants Rock Snake Mobile Industrial Colony (SM+14, $94.42 billion) or 31,000 inhabitants Class V Orbital Spaceport (SM+15, $180.32 billion)?

No! Neither! Start small, a harmless utopian thing for an insignificant number of visionaries. Say 500 people. The nice thing about zero-gravity structures in space is that nothing restricts their growth in any direction and transformation into anything, if there's the money, the workforce and the materials.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Alonsua

What? No, no. The corporation launches the largest spaceport to ever exist, then attempts to obtain sovereignty claiming the spaceport as its capital or territory at first (international or space law on hand), ...

Then it claims sovereignty, no roll needed. Whether it is recognised depends on each individual country, the EU, the UN, and so on separately. If US Space Marines attempt to take it over, or whoever, then it'd better be prepared to repel boarders. So perhaps a Strategy roll is needed... but in the end, it's a setting question, not a rules question.

[AlexanderHowl]

Not likely. Either China, Russia, or the USA would veto any attempt to recognize the sovereignty of the corporation in the UN. They would also likely force through a UN vote that would freeze every financial asset of the corporation. They may also decide to nuke the facility, on the assumption that no one could prove that the corporation did not have illegal weapon of mass destruction that 'accidentally' detonated.

In the case of the Catholic Church, it is the Vatican City that is a sovereign nation, not the Catholic Church, because it is the last of the Papel States, which means that it predates the vast majority of the nations currently in existence. Without such a history, the corporation could not gain legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. A corporation might declare itself a sovereign nation, plenty of lunatics have done so throughout history, but I doubt it would have the power or legitimacy to gain recognition (the Catholic Church represents 20% of humanity, so the Vatican City gain legitimacy through representing the largest group of humans on Earth).

[Donny Brook]

A corporation is an entity established under the laws of a state. A corporation establishing itself as an independent state is fundamentally incompatible with the retention of corporate status.

The people employed by a corporation are citizens of one or more states. A corporation that purported to seek statehood would run up against the citizenship rights and responsibilities of those employees.

Consider:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination

The idea of a corporation becoming a sovereign state under the existing world order is absurd. None of: the elements of statehood, recognition by other states, or a national identity to exercise self-determination can be obtained by a corporation through the mere use of skills.

[Alonsua]

Originally Posted by Michele

But why exactly does the corporation need to officially cliam sovereignty?...

The corporation is already the de facto power in the United States, now it plans to claim Antarctica for itself.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Consider:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination

The idea of a corporation becoming a sovereign state under the existing world order is absurd. None of: the elements of statehood, recognition by other states, or a national identity to exercise self-determination can be obtained by a corporation through the mere use of skills.

I'm not sure if either of those pages support what you are saying. The first one has this line:
Westphalian sovereignty is the concept of nation-state sovereignty based on territoriality and the absence of a role for external agents in domestic structures. It is an international system of states, multinational corporations, and organizations that began with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

While the second opens with this line:
It states that people, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference.

So, I would say that a space station can declare independence and maintain it as long as they are able to.

I agree with the "mere use of skills" part though- that seems secondary.